Using Free Translation Apps for Business – At Your Own Risk

We all know there are a number of translation applications out there, with Google Translate being the most well-known one. Around 200 million people use the free engine each month. It is fast, it gets the “gist” of the translation most of the time and the price is right. So why not use it for your business documents? Here are some things you might want to consider before doing so:

1. Accuracy and consistency. Free translation engines work based on statistical algorithms. They crawl the web for the most frequently used combinations of words and then “translate” based on what they found. Sometimes, the results are pretty good. But do not bet your business success on them. Translation is a creative activity, and one has to think about context, grammar, register and style when translating. You will never get that from a machine.

2. Confidentiality. Let’s say you copy your contract or new product patent into a free translation engine to get it translated. Just like that, it becomes part of the public domain. The copyright is no longer yours; nor are any trade secrets. Read the fine print and take every precaution you can so you can stay in control of your brand and image.

3. Professional image. When given a document translated online, a native speaker will instantly recognize from where the translation originated and will be disappointed that doing things on the cheap–or in this case for free—was more important than getting the message across correctly. The hard cost of re-translation and reproduction may be easy to cover, but the soft cost of lost image or reputation may be too high to ever recover.

The Internet is full of examples of how translation engines goof up (and do so more frequently than you would ever imagine). Want proof? Take a paragraph or two, insert them into one of the free online applications and translate into one of the 100 or so languages offered. Then, take the result and translate it back into English. See what comes out and judge for yourself whether or not you would bet your business reputation on the result.

You might agree with me that, beyond a postcard to a friend in Italy, you might rather stick with a professional service.

Happy translating!